Diamonds — Animals of Chiquitos — Decree of 1837, and act of Congress — Señor Oliden’s voyage on the Paraguay river — Salt — Fall of trees — Descending the mountains — Monkey meat — Coca plant — Espiritu Santo — Creole workmen — A night in the wild woods — Yuracares hunting — River San Mateo — Province of Yuracares.
It is a singular fact that no diamonds have been found on the Bolivian side of the Madeira Plate or La Plata basin, while among those streams, in Brazil, which flow into these rivers diamonds abound. The general opinion is that these precious stones do not exist in Bolivia. The streams which pay tribute to the Madeira and Paraguay, from the east in Brazil, are clear water rivers. In these transparent waters the diamond is easily discovered. The washing away of the earth on that side is not very great, even in the rainy season of the year.
All the streams on the western or Bolivian side bear muddy water; the wearing away on that side is very great. The filling up of the Madeira Plate is done from that side, just as the Titicaca lake is filling up the fastest on its western shore, so that the diamonds of Bolivia, if they exist, are lost in the mud. We were told by diamond hunters that in rivers where the divers descend some distance, they find the water coldest on the bottom where they pick up the precious stone, and the men are so chilled when they returned to the surface, that they require to be warmed by the side of a large fire, even under the heat of a tropical sun.
In the woods, and on the pampas of Chiquitos, roams the Tapir or Brazil elk, the meat of which resembles that of the ox, and is considered a delicacy by the Indians. In the forests, the fields, and about the rivers, birds abound. The wild boar pushes his way through the grass, and the American lion or jaguar leaps to fight the spotted tiger for the fatted calf. The bear and wild-cat prowl through the tangled creepers, while monkeys and parrots chatter their own peculiar idioms. The fox and armadillo inhabit the hill sides; near the river banks the turtle deposits its eggs. Large and small snakes require no search.
From the Pacific coast to the Paraguay river, on the parallel of 18° south latitude, there are three different climates; that of Oruro, cold, with an unproductive soil, thinly populated, and the inhabitants generally poor; the towns becoming every year more and more depopulated, and the resources of the country less valuable than in former years.
170 BOLIVIAN DECREE BY PRESIDENT SANTA CRUZ.
The ruins of the ancient Peruvians there stand as truthful memorials of “the Past.” Descending the steppe of Cochabamba, the climate is temperate, the soil more productive, the inhabitants increasing in numbers, and the Spanish race in their strength. Here are found the most intelligence and the greatest improvements. In the heart of the nation are living examples of “the Present.”
Proceeding to the bottom of the Madeira Plate into Chiquitos, we find the means of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures on the very top of steamboat navigation, presenting to us elements of the blessings of a peaceful “future.”
The nation of Bolivia now stands facing the Pacific coast. The appearance of one little steamboat on the Paraguay river, anchored on the coast of Chiquitos, would turn the whole “right about.”
On the 27th of December, 1837, Andres Santa Cruz, President of the republic of Bolivia, issued a decree by which foreign merchandise should enter the province of Chiquitos and Mojos free from all duty or tax whatever, and that all the productions of these provinces should be exported upon the principle of free trade.
On the 5th November, 1832, the Bolivian congress, as compensation for revolutionary services, had granted to an enterprising citizen, Don Manuel Luis de Oliden, a tract of land, twenty-five leagues “in all directions from a point on the river Otuguis.”